Anios
Anios is a large, terrestrial planet whose diameter equates to nearly twice that of Reach. Resting in the Sagittarius Indi Star System, it is all but remote to its surrounding star systems. In its narrow isolation, very few species had known about its existence; most space-faring races' radar capabilities were thwarted by the nebula it rested inside of; the radiation carried with interfering with most electronic mapping systems (save for the Forerunners, its constructor). It has four satellites: two artificial planets, two naturally-formed moons, and one naturally-formed Jovian ice giant. Before the Forerunner-Flood War, Anios was a large Forerunner military hotspot; it served as a ship world, hosting armaments and extra technologies for its reserves. Upon the decimation of the galaxy and the Prehistoric Halo Event, no species were cataloged on the planet's surface or at the abandoned Forerunner sites. Geography Many question the probability of the planet being earth-like, larger than Reach—more importantly, at least three times as dense—and still have gravitational pull and celestial revolutions by the nearest star identical to that of Earth, down to the second. Some time in the 25th century, Anian scientists discovered it was not at all naturally formed; nor was the respective star. As Forerunners were perceptibly far more advanced than modern humans, there was no telling how this was accomplished. Much of the planet's surface is similar to that of Earth's, variable: two arctic regions at the respective north and south poles, moderate climate between equators, deserts and other arid stages, a dozen mountain chains, and the region is plentiful of fertile land and minerals embedded in the surface. Edera, the planet's largest continent, is vast and so large it was designated to be separated into three sections: North, South and East. What lies underneath the surface is the more accurate definition of its richness. A 'goldmine' of resources were discovered, including several different kinds of stronger metals. Military contractors and production groups began excavating tungsten deposits and fusing them with carbon for ceramic armor for the military itself. Rozgel is the southmost arctic region and most harsh, unforgiving and therefore ultimately uninhabitable region of the planet. It resembles keystone features of the Earthbound continent, Antarctica: barren, cold, and the planet's settlers had agreed not to colonize it for any other reason aside from scientific research. North Rozgel is the continent that rests at the peak of the planet's magnetic polar expanse, or its North Pole. Despite that Anios is nearly 84% land (Alpegi, Angeline, Indus, Antogi and Edera are separated by mere seas, opposing to the presence of a single ocean in the planet), it is still habitable by a space-faring race; one of its natural satellites, Vitrous, is more than 75% freshwater. Water supplies were easily transported between the fleet and its smallest moon by its people. In addition, Ragnar, a Jovian ice giant, orbits the celestial body dubbed "Sagittaron." Extraction of freshwater is relatively easy to the Anians, given their technology (Slipspace translocation rather than conventional space rockets, for maximum fuel effectiveness). In response to environmental concerns for large amounts of water being moved to the planet and radically changing the habitability, Vitrous and Ragnar have both been designated to serve naval demands, rather than providing enough for the Anians on the surface of their home planet. Water supplements for the actual ground surface would come from its scarce oceans and groundwater; a fundamental part of the Anian government's budget would be water filtration plants, almost more than their nuclear power plants. People A relatively new and well-organized civilization, called Anians, were fleeing from the Humans' military campaigns in their original solar system, around the end of the Interplanetary Wars, as the United Nations battled fascist and communist nations in the earliest age of space expedition. By 2365 C.E., with the invention of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, this large group of people found their window and escaped the human empire, seeking refuge; they utilized their newly-invented Slipspace-capable ships and jumped to pre-calculated coordinates, as they scoped out a large planet cloaked within a nebula by chance; they were certain the UNSC would not trace it themselves. Lead by the ex-military imperialist, the Duke of Vordek, the people settled on the planet they called Anios; its capital, New Vordek, after their suddenly-elected commander in chief. Colonization was fast. Within a decade, the entire planet had been explored and mining facilities were starting all over the four largest continents retaining to Edera and Alpegi. As the government warred itself several times and the assassination of the Duke was heavily pronounced, who was less beneficial to the citizens of Anios, there were several insurrections. The latest, known as the People's Liberation and Rebellion, split off from the imperial state and colonized Indus, beginning their lives in segregation from that point. As politics stirred and accelerated in the absence of terrorism, by the time the people had settled, they had a name for their nation: the United Republic of Anios, taking on the adaptation of a representative democracy. History Early History Upon colonization, the Anians were very conflicted; their commander had turned out to be a sour ruler, acting very fascist and perhaps too imperialistic for the peoples' need. There was no initial establishment for a government, so the autocracy was particularly quick to react and take over. It was, for a time, a military state. Scholars believe that even now, however, it may be considered as a form of military republic; progress may not have been the largest sight in their government's history. Insurrection The People's Liberation and Rebellion army was assembled in response to the autocratic tyranny of the Duke of Vordek. An assassination was conducted, conspiring against the man until a successful attack left the commander of a Royal hegemony dead in New Vordek's central plaza. After years of self-construction, the Anian hegemony declared the PLR outlaws and exiled them to the Indus continent, which was not yet fully discovered and colonized. In the centuries of peacetime, the Anian government built itself into what it is was declared by November, 2378, a representative democracy. Discoveries Upon extensive mining and science research facilities, Anios revealed its age-old secrets to Research Base Tether, as it was digging into the surface of Angeline. It discovered a cache of unimaginable value. The Forerunner Armory Not only was Anios rich in strong materials, embedded in the swamps and forests of Alpegi was a massive Forerunner site, discovered in 2430. There were ancient Huragok present, as well, leaving the Anians with a surplus of Tier-1 technologies and enough Engineers to build their Navy for them. It was exactly as it was implied to have happened, growing the Anian Military and effectively branching the collective armed forces into three militaries: terrestrial, space and self-defense. The Anian Armed Forces quickly developed and transformed the United Republic of Anios into a military republic, ultimately shaping its history. The Exodus Wars With the new technology, the Anian Army initialized an attack on the Indus continent in 2440, driving the PLR and its inhabitants out. For nearly two decades, they battled for the territory in what was known as the Edera-Indus Campaign. In July 2460, a truce was initialized, at a cost: all that were affiliated with the PLR were abolished and exiled from Anios, on a project called "Lima;" the Anians would, with their Tier-1 technologies, construct a planet that would orbit around theirs for the PLR to take refuge on. It was a ten-year project that ensured the safety of all PLR and Anians, creating new jobs and increasing employment rates; almost no one suffered from the process. As the project neared its final stages, the PLR were beginning to assemble and leave. Through smuggling, however, PLR had gained its hands on several plans that the Anians had for themselves, including the Dyson Network Project and Transcendence. They also had equipped themselves with enough Huragok to breed and maintain themselves in their timely isolation by 2465. Military Officially, the Anians have run by a single military power, space operations, but at the time of the discovery of the Forerunners, they were more centered on self-defense. By 2380, a terrestrial military was formed, the Anian Colonial Military; branches followed as the Colonial Army, Navy and Air Force. Their second establishment, the Self-Defense forces, followed as the name had suggested; their main focus was protection of the largest continent and its cities, including Edera and New Vordek, respectively. Their focus was human insurrections and possibly extraterrestrial aliens with an inappropriate definition of "negotiation". The third and most constituted, the United Republic of Anios Space Expeditionary Forces (official abbreviation ASE) was set to explore new worlds and, eventually, return to Earth and bode new alliances and achieving "universal peace through strength". This called for the eradication of all rebellion, including the PLR, which had finally created a mutual agreement of non-aggression. The ASE Office of Naval Intelligence (Navy) became involved in two projects: the Dyson Network project, and Transcendence. It was a two-hundred year plan, calling for construction of millions of football field-sized parts to be put together to form a Dyson sphere around the solar network known as Sagittarius, gathering endless amounts of clean energy; Transcendence was a project of muscle. It was to create a massive space-age dreadnought, one that spans more than a hundred kilometers long. Anian-Covenant War In October, 2525, a branch of the Covenant declared war on Anios, discovering there were humans present on the world. During the battle of Belvast, the economic center of Edera, one of the existing fleets, Unity, was dispatched in a response to the appearance of a CSO-class Covenant supercarrier appearing over the city's no-fly zone. Unity's flagship, A.C.S. Lexington, was the largest boat in human history; spanning more than twenty kilometers long, it housed 30 STOL-compatible runways, 10 CTOL and fixed-wing runways, and one large tarmac that runs through the entire spans of the ship that could provide space for a large sixteen-engine Anian strategic airlift jet to land on (it was the primary use for it, to be exact). It was equipped with several anti-ship pulse lasers and particle cannons, along with a complement of aircraft and laser artillery bombs and howitzers. The budgets for the construction of eighteen Lexington-class aircraft carriers was tremendous, almost triggering a deficit from the strenuous outsourcing of the Colonial Military's defense contractors. Some had theorized that the manner the Covenant had discovered Anios was by Slipstream space gateways; they had been trafficking through the Sagittarius sector, ignoring the presence of humans in Sagittarius Indi, believing that there were none to begin with (according to Forerunner specimen catalogues, they were not wrong). In the Summer of 2525, Anians had tested the Dyson Network by pinging one end of the ring to another; this ensured that it was a perfect circle in alignment around the star, optimally collecting energy by its deadline. It created a major Slipspace event, causing the Delta Satellite's PLR nuclear weapons in its largest military base's supply manifest to emit Cherenkov radiation; Covenant passing through the sector detected it, suspecting humans settling, and attacked the planet. Several fleets were deployed to Belvast and New Vordek, defending the seaside regions of Edera, while the Anian Colonial Army began launching large operations in what is known as the Los Anea Campaign: *Operation: VISITOR *Operation: NOVA *Operation: BELARUS *Operation: BACKLASH *Operation: ENDGAME Mercopylae, hometown to the Anian Colonial Military Strategic HQ; the Anian "Ground-Pound" surface defense grids "pounded" Covenant assault carriers as they began to enter atmosphere, defending their civilians with high-powered magnetic accelerator cannons. The Colonial Army suffered mild losses whilst the Colonial Navy's fleets rarely lost any ships; most were heavily damaged or barely disabled before the naval skirmishes were over and they turned victorious. On several other fronts, including space and the infamous orbital defense grid, the Covenant's forces were defeated and the contingent retreated, never to be spotted again in Anian space. Anian Revolution At the time of the Covenant invasion of Anios, the Colonial Fleets, comprised of six of the largest Colonial military fleets including Battlegroups Unity and Commonwealth, held a massive naval defense line at Belvast; no Covenant were able to make it into the civilian lines of the trade center, the "heart" of Anios. In only months, the Covenant were completely driven out of Sagittarius Indi. Behind the metaphorical walls, an uprising was starting as people, oppressed by harsh laws by the Republic's government, trashed their military leaders following a "No taxation without representation" principle, beginning to support the PLR's efforts. In response to the Patriot riots, law enforcement used lethal force, gunning down several groups of unarmed protesters in the city limits. In response as well, the Patriots armed themselves and took on the Colonial Military as an established militia. Even as the Covenant were driven off of Anios, the warring continued; Joahan Fitzgerald IV, ex-naval commander of the Anian battlegroup Patriot and commanding officer of the Concord-class battleship, the A.C.S. Saratoga, created a small group of naval ships out of the heavily-taxed titanium as distributed by defense contractors. One of which was a recreated type of the Concord-class battleship, the Patriot Navy's flagship. In 2530, the Anians were overwhelmed by a series of militia campaigns led by the well-revered and experienced naval commander, and within five years of war all eighteen Lexington-class supercarriers were under Patriot control; they had also disabled the nuclear weaponry in the Anian supply manifest. With no leverage on the new insurrection, the Anian Government was left with no choice but to surrender by 2540. With the new Patriot government, they peacefully settled on a new template of policies; freedom. Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of choice, freedom of consumerism, and most of all, freedom of representation. Representation was a major issue that the people of Anios (specifically Belvast, considered a "colony" and had no voting rights) had pleaded the government for. Once again, the government was reformed, and Anios had undergone another colossal-scale revolution. Anian Enterprise With the new republic's gears set in motion, it was decided that Exodus war veteran Commander Joahan Fitzgerald should be the new commander-in-chief; the polls showed unanimous support and almost no campaigning had been done by the time Fitzgerald found himself elected Prime Minister of the Anian sovereignty. A "modest soul," (as the everyday civilians had described him) Fitzgerald swore not to advocate for himself, but if the public demanded he be leader, "then so be it," he said. With his leadership came decisive changes. The government swayed more socialist than capitalist; government would keep tabs on newly-growing corporations to monitor their power and influence. Electrical power distribution was handled by the government; with the new Dyson network, unlimited amounts of energy could be harvested at virtually no cost. Free power, for all. The Anian public grew to support him fully after only two years of revisions. The namesake of the United Republic of Anios had changed in favor of Fitzgerald's intentions: The Anian Enterprise, as it was decided, would be led by science projects in all fields. Legalized stem cell research for various fields, including military science. The many colonies and economic centers, such as Belvast, were thriving in growth as the population exploded and the poverty rate was as low as 0.05% of the national populace. The Enterprise Era, as historians and scholars dubbed it, was a time for prosperity and ultimate peace. Though, as unifying as it was, it wouldn't last long. Anian-Human War Some thirty years later, by 2565, the Anian Government Council had begun to re-write the rules of the Enterprise, returning its status to a military republic. Fitzgerald was long out of office, serving an eight year term and being re-elected twice into office; he retired and deceased in his homestead by September, 2560. In the years of the new management, the economy crashed down heavier than anything observed in history literally overnight and almost all hope was lost. In a desperate attempt to regain economic strength, taxes were lifted on virtually everything: tea, textiles, excise materials, and scientific research. Almost immediately, the economy began to bloom again, slowly and steadily; the legacy of the Enterprise was being carried out. Council members discovered that the economy was recovering ineffectively slow, and a plan was devised. It was simple: wage war with whatever remained of the Unified Earth Government, if there is any left. New jobs would be created; a "total war" scenario, where a nation's military and civilians are devoted to winning a clash against another's, appeared at first to be the perfect quick solution. Anian legislature completed the declaration of war and, within the day, Anian starships were preparing for their Slipspace jumps to the Sol star system. The battlegroup Posterity was the first fleet to deploy; their ships landed on the wrong co-ordinates and found themselves orbiting Epsilon Eridanus, housing a particularly interesting planet that was barely starting to be terraformed and re-colonized: Reach. Without communicating with the those identifying themselves as the United Nations Space Command, force deployments and attacks began to ring out against them; the lead dreadnought, a 25-kilometer long Megalith-class starship, the ASE Wintergreen carried out ruthless strikes; the rest of the fleet, containing mid-sized ships in comparison to the Wintergreen, took almost no damage or losses in the intensively one-sided battle against the UNSC fleet. The remainder of the fleets dropped out at various different locations—all UNSC hotspots. Only one of which found themselves at Earth, the battlegroup Hydra. The flotilla hesitated not for a second to wipe out majority of the orbital defenses over London, England before, eventually, their efforts were slowed to a halt and the crews were taken captive. All of the other fleets, when receiving word, immediately jumped to Earth; upon arrival, an armada of two thousand dreadnoughts and five thousand corvettes met neck-and-neck with each other, clashing against the UNSC defense platforms. For the time, a campaign was launched against the UNSC's military facilities on the American eastern seaboard and most areas in eastern Asia and western Europe. Said campaign given the title Iota Solos Campaign, a euphemism devised by the Anian admiralty for "fast, small-scale and every individual victory counts." Several operations under the jurisdiction of Commander of the Military Thomas E. White were complete successes, resulting in almost total occupation over the objective regions. Armies in the eastern Americas began pushing westward; Asian deployments pushed to the Middle East; western European victors pressed on to eastern Europe, however halted by Balkan (namely the Albanian Expansion) nations' military resistance by 2566. The war was long, harsh and (from a moral standpoint, at least) becoming less popular to the Anian public as every day passed; ideas of the UNSC's perspective of the Anian onslaught were growing, and more and more production facilities' staff were picketing and striking for their cause. If that wasn't enough, terrorism began to stir in population centers, rising with relentless suicide bombings that would threaten the military into submission of the peoples' will: end the war. Despite this, the ASE forces were relentless and would not cease. In the summer of 2567, a massive counteroffensive was launched by UNSC Fleet Admiral Finch, commanding the battle group Angels, aboard the UNSC Valkyrie, a Valiant-class warship. It was during the year-long Battle of New York that he had discovered the location of Anios when the admiral's flagship rammed and boarded the Wintergreen in low orbit after a swift electromagnetic strike that wiped out its energy shielding permanently. As the Anian Parliament discovered news of the compromise in intelligence, an arms race quickly started; the UNSC scrambled to assemble a fleet of six hundred of the most powerful warships to a single task force to assault Anios in a timely manner. The Anians prepared for a massive home front war. In only six months, Finch's fleet had appeared on Anian radar; their navy was well-prepared, but had been so acclimated to a black-and-white trench or sea-esque warfare they had not anticipated hit-and-run tactics on their own turf. Ships, using scavenged Anian equipment, would appear from seemingly nowhere and attack a large placement before the cannons could turn around and then activate its Slipspace drive as soon as targeting solutions had been acquired; nuclear warheads would be warped into orbit of a defense platform to weaken its gun placements, succeeded by a complement of infiltrating marines; even Spartans would conduct joint EVA operations to break a hole in the Anian defense line. After a month of constant guerilla warfare in vacuum, Finch's strategy finally succeeded as not enough Anian ships could be produced and not enough men could man the warships to replenish the gaps in their array. All six hundred of the ships in Task Force Vertigo made it through safely to Anian soil. For the reason of the vast anti-ship defense network, the Anians had not prepared for a ground war at all. In fact, it was so much so that when Finch's forces appeared in the skies, several air stations refused to report the sighting as they concluded their radio transmission officers were hallucinating. The Anian military response was harsh. Blindsided, the Colonial Army and Air Forces deployed in joint operations, launching a counteroffensive of nearly six million soldiers in both branches. Despite the bold approach, it was still too straightforward. Losses were heavy and Task Force Vertigo held strong; Finch's men were well-trained and prepared for the mountainous environment, even more than the Anians themselves. Anians had been so acclimated and experienced to battling a war in the city streets and black-and-white plumes of smoke from a relentless trench war they had forgotten the importance of aerial superiority in mountains and varied terrains. They were severely at a disadvantage. A large part of western Edera--excluding civilian centers and flat regions or plateaus-- was shortly under Finch's control, and it was quickly used as a staging area for more UNSC forces by 2568; the admiral, among the brightest minds of the century, was merely the vanguard of the UNSC's counteroffensive. After a few months, Anians could no longer fully map out the UNSC's sphere of influence or their established forward operating areas, and so resorted to locking down the inner cities and colonies. Category:Non-aligned worlds